Don’t Inhale: Flu Particles Prevalent in Public

Tiny droplets containing the flu virus — in numbers high enough to infect you — are more prevalent in the air of public places than you might think, a new study suggests.

Half of the air samples in the study, which were taken from high-traffic areas like day care centers and airplanes, yielded concentrations of flu virus high enough to infect someone with the flu, said study researcher Linsey Marr, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

And flu-laden particles can stay in the air long after an infected person has left the vicinity, meaning it’s possible to be infected just by breathing in the infected air for an hour, she said.